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The Vodyani
Victims of a classic cycle of over-industrialization, the Vodyani were saved by technology culled from ruins of the Virtual Endless. These precursors quickly gained an aura of divinity in the eyes of the Vodyani, and are now worshiped as gods. Clothed in their great black suits of borrowed technology, Vodyani leaders pilot their great Arks across the star lanes, seeking other peoples to convert, control, and consume. Lore Leadership While there are many sprawling departments and executives within the Church of the Virtual Saints to handle the functions of running a starfaring civilization, there is only one ultimate authority - the Hierarch. This person, drawn from one of the powerful organizations that make up Vodyani society, is the ultimate authority for both religious and secular affairs. The current hierarch is Isyara St Shaiad, famous for her rigor and intensity. She is also famous for her brother - the heretic Isyander Shumèd, who nearly destroyed the society when he led a revolt against his own people. Homeworld Tchinomy, The home planet of the Vodyani was a poor yet temperate world, and the fragility of its environment meant it was soon depleted. As a result the Vodyani were driven into space by necessity, and already have a long history as a ship-bound people. Though their civilization has become tied to their great starfaring Arks, Tchinomy remains a powerful symbol both as a lesson in ecology and as a memory of the weak and grotesque forms the Vodyani had before Virtual technology allowed them to evolve beyond that. Society Vodyani society is organized as a formal and hierarchical church that worships the Virtual branch of the Endless. As they were saved from extinction by the technology of the Virtual Endless, it is only natural that they in turn worship these all-powerful precursors as gods. Prayer, recitation, and study are important parts of everyday life, and as study involves ruins, relics, and ancient technology much of their religious activity has pragmatic consequences. Results are carefully monitored, however, and as mechanical control of the "Cloth" worn by every Vodyani is in the hands of the Church, there is little room for independent thought, much less rebellion. Traits Note: Vodyani do not get access to terraforming or anomaly reduction technology, and they cannot enact planetary specializations. Population on Arks The Vodyani have some very unusual mechanics regarding population. Their population lives on individual Arks, and a "virtual/symbolic" instance of each population on the ship is simultaneously applied to each and every planet in the system to which it is currently docked. Thus, if you've got three population on your Ark docked in a system with two planets, the system will "appear" to have three population on each planet, for a total of six. The same Ark docked in a five-planet system would appear to have three on each planet for a total of fifteen, so ... you can see that it's particularly advantageous for the Vodyani to snag systems with large numbers of planets. Should you discover a more attractive system, you can simply undock the Ark and move it and all its citizens and system improvements (bar a very few unique improvements/wonders that say so in their tooltip) to their new home. Two things are important to note: Firstly, since each citizen is 'virtualized' on every planet, Vodyani completely ignore the usual population capacity of planets. Huge planets will only be worked by the smaller population cap of the Ark (perhaps 3-5) even if they'd normally have a much higher capacity, but tiny planets and gas giants which would normally have only 1-2 capacity can, for the Vodyani, go all the way up to the capacity of their Ark. The capacity of an Ark is given by its system level (the ones which are unlocked by researching economic tiers and spending luxury resources), starting at 3 for tier 1 and increasing by 2 for each tier to a maximum of 9. Colonization and Docking: A given planet in a system is worked whenever the corresponding colonization tech has been researched. This process is automatic and instant, Vodyani do not need to manually expand to additional planets. Conversely, though, they cannot choose to not work a specific planet. This, combined with the fact that Vodyani have no access to terraforming or anomaly reduction techs, is something to consider when picking a system, as a juicy resource node can become far less attractive if the system is riddled with barren planets and detrimental anomalies, since the Vodyani cannot avoid taking the hit from the planet's maluses. Arks have two states - docked, and undocked. When undocked, an Ark acts simply as a movable ship, able to participate in combat like any other. An undocked Ark generates no , however. Any improvements and pop that system had are "remembered" by that Ark, even though you have no UI to view them, and will immediately be present again when that Ark docks on a system. When docked, that "system" immediately becomes available again with no cooldown. Note: you cannot dock at a system if all of the planets are considered uninhabitable (ie., if you have none of the necessary colonization techs). Population Traits An extremely unusual aspect of the Vodyani is that you're not allowed to have any non-Vodyani population. Population from influenced minor factions will not migrate to your Arks; you're not allowed to find exiles, and when you "take over" a minor faction's system via assimilation, you just wipe out the system. Ultimately, the Devs have systematically nipped every gameplay path you could take to get alternate populations. Lorewise, this is because the Vodyani are convinced their own physical state of being is a superior form of life - they believe they have a religious mandate to force all creatures in the galaxy to undergo the same physical conversion the Vodyani undertook in their origin story (in fact some of the Vodyani Heroes are canonically described as being converted from a completely different species, originally, than the "Vodyani" species which grew up on Tchinomy). When you're harvesting , you're partly killing off the population for their life-force, but through some of the actions depicted on minor-faction planets, it's implied that you're also converting them into Vodyani, copying their consciousnesses into Vodyani "Cloth" bodies. Because of this mechanic, when you destroy an enemy system, it becomes a "hunting grounds" (a similar mechanic to that used when Pirates destroy a system); it can be instantly recovered by an opponent with a colony ship, but after you trigger the destruction, it will gradually lose population and buildings each turn until the system is back to a fully empty state. During this time, you can immediately dock an Ark, and your empire receives an bonus for as long as the hunting ground status persists. Vodyani also have the unique ability to 'brainwash' minor factions once they have reached full approval with them. This turns the target faction into a vassal state, granting continuous and benefits, and allows the Vodyani to receive their faction trait. It also locks them out of being possible for enemies to assimilate, either by quest or / assimilation-buyout, outside of a ground-invasion. This can be a (costly) shortcut in the race for faction traits compared to completing quests. Finally, the Vodyani receive a hefty, flat 50% penalty to production. This has several implications: # Population growth is most commonly achieved via the 'Holy Proliferation' mechanic, exchanging an increasing amount of for additional population (the cost is tracked on Ark-level). However, even Vodyani have to eat, and if the is not enough to sustain the higher population, it will die off, possibly instantly, negating any benefit from spending . # Manpower is significantly hampered especially in the early game, you will simply not produce enough to field any sort of significant invasion fleet. Where other factions can simply drop a few ships full of infantry on a planet and let them duke it out, Vodyani have to siege the defenders down (via slugs and the like) in order to be able to take them when they're defenseless. Additionally, population-rich systems can easily spell doom for your invasion plans if they turn to drafting, so if you expect this to happen, it might be wise to drain their population a little with a handful of leechers beforehand, or use invasion tactics that have a high chance of killing civilian population (you monster!). An alternative way to handle this is to use the 'Military Penance' mechanic, exchanging for , but again this should be weighted against the opportunity cost of more productive population via 'Holy Proliferation' or another Ark. # If you play as non-Vodyani and pick up a Vodyani exile from a curiosity somewhere, the game has cushioned the blow - it used to be in earlier patches that this one Vodyani would be enough to cut your entire system's production in half; instead, what they've done now, is they've set it up so that this "50% malus" is proportionate the "the relative proportion of Vodyani population on a system". That is - if the system is comprised of 100% Vodyani pops, you'll get the full 50% malus, but if you've got only 1 Voyani pop and 49 other pops, you'll get a 1% malus. # A primary reason to be concerned about this is if you convert a Vodyani system using - you'll receive a very large number of Vodyani in a system with no other pop types, so you'll be receiving the full 50% malus. (Note that if you convert them via , they'll 'scuttle' their Ark, and you'll be given a system with a floating 'wrecked Ark', as well as the accompanying bonus, and a bunch of Vodyani settled on the ground. You can't, alas, use this as a way to cheese yourself into having a functional Ark whilst not playing Vodyani, proper - it seems that, code-wise the whole Ark mechanic is tied to the "Ship Bound" mechanic, and can't even function for a faction that doesn't have it. Rather than working on a system-by-system basis, it seems to work on an empire-by-empire basis.) The Vodyani favour policies, some of which yield significant benefits for them. # "Righteous Fury", the base policy, allows their fleets to operate in opponent-controlled areas without declaring war. Very useful for leeching. # "Species Stability" provides a significant bonus to production, which may save a bad game start where there is no nearby enemy to leech from. # "Saints and Sinners" helps dramatically with problems (which can be hefty due to population mechanics). Ships Due to the unique "Ark" and "Essence" mechanics for the Vodyani, there are no Colonizer ships. Instead two additional ships, the Ark, and the ( ) Leecher, are added to their roster. Ark Strategic Implications (non-combat): Arks house the entire Vodyani population in a system as well as all improvements you may have built (bar a few unique improvements, esp. wonders, that say so in the tooltip). They are ships, so they've got a unique vulnerability to being attacked as such (which can be avoided with the Anchoring Module, which forces enemy attackers to only engage the Ark via a "ground invasion" rather than ship-to-ship combat, as long as the Ark is docked), but they've also got the unique strategic opportunity to almost instantly relocate to high-yield nodes which most factions would take a large amount of time/effort to colonize. Their massive amount of utility slots, especially with later upgrades, makes them extremely versatile. Equipping them with engines in all utility slots allows them to zip across the galaxy, where they can then dock and immediately upgrade to more useful utility slot layouts. Arks boast a special type of module that can greatly enhance system performance with regards to , or even generate some flat every round, should you run out of opponents to stick your leechers on. Dedicated sieging arks can also be very effective. You should not hesitate to switch out modules according to your current needs; the resource/yield-type quests are trivial with this ability, for example. Strategic Implications (combat): Arks appear to have an innate combat ability; even without weapon modules equipped, they appear to have one rather-powerful kinetic weapon, and one rather-powerful laser. Their one weapon slot has a fairly potent multiplier on it; at least in the neighborhood of 4x or higher. Arks are reasonably powerful combat ships, although this tends to fall off by the mid/early game. Generally speaking, due to risk/reward, you want to avoid fighting with your Ark, but it's not defenseless, and in the early game it can definitely hold its own against small 2-3 cp fleets. As for offensive use of Arks, besides the substantial risk of losing your Ark, the other downside is the missed opportunity cost of not having your Ark docked to a system, and thus, setting all resource/ generation to zero (which is particularly brutal if this is your only Ark). Strategic Implications (Ark Destruction): If an Ark is destroyed in combat, rather than being "deleted" (as is the case for most ships), it will leave a "destroyed Ark" object on the node where it was beaten. If you are a "Ship-Bound" affinity faction (i.e. one that uses Arks), any "destroyed Ark" can be rebuilt at a cost of , as long as you're able to move a fleet onto that node (it becomes available as a fleet action). For non-Ship-Bound factions, wrecked Arks provide a small bonus if the system in question is settled, but are otherwise non-interactive. Note that of course, each Ark represents an entire system of yours, and if you lose your one Ark at the start of the game, you're done. That's a game-over condition. Strategic Implications (combat, early-rushing): There are a number of early-game strategies that have been bandied about in online guides, involving a very early rush against a nearby opponent. This uses the combined power of your hero, and the Ark (being used as a combat ship), to bully a neighbor, and (using the fact that the Vodyani affiliation allows immediate invasion/hostility without the cost of formally declaring war) to immediately attack them and potentially wipe them out. This used to be a relatively reliable (and somewhat overpowered) play, but Arks have had their combat power nerfed by quite a bit. This is now a somewhat risky play and is mostly down to start location (which in turn is partly down to game settings, with this being hard to pull off if enemies are spread out evenly) - if an opponent spawns immediately nearby, it may be viable, but if they're far enough away that they have time to start mustering a formal military fleet, you probably want to scrap this play. Leecher Strategic Implications: The leecher is a versatile utility ship. Because it has both an attack/defense slot, and still has two utility slots, the leecher can be a decent early combat vessel, and by having a grand total of 4 utility slots, it can service a few early game jobs besides merely leeching. Contrary perhaps to expectations, the "signature module" associated with it - the Leeching Module, can be equipped on any of your ships. You don't have to put it on a "leecher" ship. The leecher ship, however, is quite cheap - half the cost of an attacker ship, and quite flexible, with 4 utility slots, so it's a pretty decent way to do it. The leeching module sucks the life-force out of an inhabited system's population, and turns it into . Specifically, each module will reduce the growth on a planet by 5, and give 13 , per turn. If this pushes their growth into the negative, that's their problem, not yours. The leechers are relatively weak in combat (in part because they share the scout/colonizer behavior of not focusing their fire, and instead just shooting at random targets in combat). Still - they are merely half the cost of tier-1 combat ships, and are a bit versatile because they can be refitted from a utility/leeching role towards combat for a small outlay of , once built. One of the main attractions of kitting at least a single gun onto them is that it turns "chasing away" leechers from a trifle that even a 1 CP enemy explorer can manage, into something that requires a dedicated 2-4 CP fleet of actual combat ships. One utility role Leechers can fill is to equip 4 engines and use it to rapidly plot out the nearby nodes. It cannot equip probes, so it can't fully replace your formal "explorer" ships, but your explorers can only equip 2 engines at most, and that's a bit silly because your explorer would have to omit probes entirely to manage 2 engines, so a pure engine leecher will be 4 times as fast as a one-engine explorer. Essentially you can "split" the job of exploration into curiosity-probing and lane-plotting as separate tasks. The Leecher can also be turned into a cheap and effective sieging craft by installing several slugs. Note: Leeching ships can't leech pirate lairs or outposts. Explorer Strategic Implications: Ironically this is considerably worse at exploration than your Leechers, since you have only two utility slots (sadly, though, the Leecher can't equip probes). You will never be very fast compared to other faction's scout ships, and you'll be even slower if you equip any probes. However, this has two attack modules, and 1 defense slot, so it's a fairly decent fighter. Not quite as good as the United Empire explorer, but good. Attacker Strategic Implications: This is a fairly well-rounded ship; it leans a little towards the defensive side. Has 3 potential engine slots, one of which requires the upgrade. Protector Strategic Implications: This is almost exactly like the United Empire Protector, but better - it's got one additional utility slot compared to the UE ship. This ship can equip a ton of defense modules, and only one weapon. All the protector ships in a flotilla have to die before enemy attacker ships will start shooting at your attackers, so these guys can actually take advantage of that mechanic by genuinely being tanky. 4 potential engine slots, 2 of which require the upgrade, but unlike the UE, the Vodyani attackers can actually (mostly) keep up with their protector escorts. Coordinator Strategic Implications: This ship almost ought to be called a carrier; it has 4 squadron slots, which is way above average, and means it can literally hold more squadrons than some faction's 'proper' Carrier ships (such as the Sophons). Granted, medium ships only hold half the count of fighters/bombers than large ships (you'll get two bombers to a slot on a large ship, but only one to a slot on a medium ship), but 4 bombers on one of these in the midgame is no joke (even 3, which is what you can have without the upgrade, is very strong). Other that that, this is relatively unremarkable. It's got a somewhat low count of defense modules, so this is actually a bit bad in the 'tank' role it will be thrust into by dint of being flagged as a "coordinator" ship; enemy attacker ships will shoot at this before shooting at most of your other ships. You may want to use various tools to divert fire away from this ship, be it "jammer" modules, or manually placing these in a flotilla that will be at a very bad range for your opponent. This potentially has 4 engine slots, 1 of which requires the upgrade. Hunter Strategic Implications: Until you get the upgrade, this ship leans significantly towards defense. With the upgrade, it becomes a respectably powerful attack ship. You've got a potential 3 engines on this ship, but one of them has contention with a weapon slot. Carrier Strategic Implications: This ship has an unusually high number of potential defense modules (a grant total of 8 if you sacrifice quite a few multi-purpose slots for it). There are a total of 5 squadron slots, which is relatively high for a carrier (2 are locked behind the upgrade). There are, potentially 7 engine slots, with only two of them locked behind the upgrade, so this ship could be extremely fast. Carriers are also the only ship able to carry a Core Cracker. Vodyani get a special tech module (Holy Vestment) that shortens the weapon's lengthy firing cycle and grants additional essence per planet destroyed, making this a potentially rewarding strategic choice. Faction Quest Rewards Strategy * Don't waste your probes exploring curiosities at the beginning of the game. Send them directions your ships aren't going to explore, it's imperative to find as many minor factions as fast as possible and locate a nearby homeworld * Embrace Ark micromanagement. Whenever you have to move an Ark, try to put just enough engines in utility slots to get it to destination as fast as possible. Scavenged ramscoop is especially good module, because its bonus to distance moved is multiplicative. * Always boost your pops with luxuries. Vodyani get one of the highest bonuses from boosting. * Pass the law for extra at cost of . The benefit will be multiplied by number of planets, but the cost will remain at 1 per pop. Also, try not to lose the party from the senate (open borders, , etc.!) * Prioritize the first couple of Arks over growing your population, to claim resources and strategic positions. * Science-wise, planet colonization techs deserve special focus due to the unique Vodyani population mechanics (pick the order according to your situation!); later, mothership module upgrades can multiply your empire performance. Do not neglect reaching higher tiers on the economic sector either, because they directly affect your Ark population cap. It is helpful to rush two military techs (N-way Fusion, Focused Plasma) for their significant benefit to Ark survivability and to your ability to handle pirates. * Slowly build up a fleet of leechers and if you can, leech from a major faction supported by a combat fleet rather than a minor faction See also Vodyani_Faction_Quest Category:Factions